Classical Music Fans: Esa Pekka Steps Down - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Kuan · #1 04-11-2007, 08:10 AM

Esa Pekka Salonen, music director of the LA Philharmonic since '92, has given his notice. He'll be stepping down in two years. He'll be replaced my Gustavo Dudamel, the Venezualan Wunderkind.

I remember when Esa Pekka first came to town. The girls were all abuzz about his arrival. Good looks and great conducting, tight jeans and flowing hair. Dang you felt like she was cheating on you when you went to the orchestra!

I really wished they could have found a homegrown music director.

Trakehner · #2 04-11-2007, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kuan

Esa Pekka Salonen, music director of the LA Philharmonic since '92, has given his notice. He'll be stepping down in two years. He'll be replaced my Gustavo Dudamel, the Venezualan Wunderkind.

I remember when Esa Pekka first came to town. The girls were all abuzz about his arrival. Good looks and great conducting, tight jeans and flowing hair. Dang you felt like she was cheating on you when you went to the orchestra!

I really wished they could have found a homegrown music director.

But homegrown MDs aren't very exotic and don't bring the crowds in. EG, when someone like Daniel Barenboim conducts he sweats and gesticulates like a crazy man, and when he relaxes in his expensive polo shirts the women love him, I don't think someone born and raised in the American Middle West or even NYC can pull that off.

Kuan · #3 04-11-2007, 08:32 AM

From Time magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,882995,00.html

Note the date of the article. It could be today's front page for all that matters.

Quote:

U. S. Conductors

No U. S.-born conductor has ever been conceded a place at the top of his profession ; and few have ever rated a job as chief of even a second-rate U. S. symphony orchestra. A rare exception is the Kansas City Philharmonic's Karl Krueger, who last week completed a tour of Italy as guest maestro with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. Fuzzy-headed, cigar-puffing Krueger, who during the past four years has put Kansas City, Mo., on the symphonic map, was born in Atchison, Kans.

Principal reasons for the dearth of famous U. S.-born maestros have been: 1) a lack of places where the young U. S. conductor can cut his teeth; 2) snobbishness. In Germany, where conducting is as specialized a profession as brain surgery, conductors are systematically trained and systematically advanced in their careers. The neophyte, having mastered several musical instruments and taken a complete course in musical composition, enters a conductors' class at the konservatorium, where he studies the symphonic and operatic classics and learns how to shake a stick at an orchestra. Then he graduates. But that is only the beginning. Assigned to the staff of an opera house, he spends years rehearsing choruses, teaching singers how to sing their parts, helping conductors whip scenes into shape. Eventually, if he shows talent, he is allowed to conduct an opera or two. Only after a long term as a full-fledged opera conductor does he attempt the exacting business of conducting a symphony orchestra. Conducting opera is like driving a 20-mule team, gives an ideal training for conductors. A Brahms symphony holds no technical terrors for a man who is able to keep a badly-rehearsed chorus, five or six erratic singers and an orchestra in the same place at the same time.

Trakehner · #4 04-11-2007, 09:47 AM

LOL, 1938!!! I thought it was maybe from 10 years ago. Anyway, I think it's about exoticism, people always want what's different and I know a lot of these US musicians can go over to Europe and get jobs more easily than they can here because there's an exotic quality to Americans, plus the American accent makes them more "sympathetic". Ballet is like this too, there are so many European ballet companies that will break their necks for an American, and if they can't get an American they'll settle for a Canadian, I think either Stuttgart Ballett or Zurich Ballett have a Canadian director about whom they brag, but over here he'd be overlooked.